so, besides birding...

In addition to birding, I have been doing a little bit of crafting here and there, too. Not much, but some-- I craft a lot more when I'm in a good mood, and the uncertainty of my job situation over the last couple months just sort of 'sucked' the creative spirit right out of me for the most part. (I know that some people craft whatever their mood, or that crafting gets them out of a funk, but my creativity just doesn't work like that. If I'm not in the right frame of mind, then whatever I try do just makes me frustrated, so it's really better if I don't craft when I'm in one of those moods. But enough of my self-analysis... on to the pictures, right?!?)

thank you cards

same basic card design

I only glued the center, so the medallion has a bit of dimension to it

blank card- I love the pink and grey color scheme!

The focal shapes on these cards were all made using my new toy, a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine that can cut paper or fabric using patterns that you design or download from the internet. I've wanted one for a couple years now, and Amazon had a really good deal on it before the holidays, so I finally pulled the trigger on it (it was my verison of Black Friday shopping, lol!). I've only used it a bit so far, but it's pretty cool!!

The machine connects to your computer and the patterns are set-up on the computer screen (using the machine's software) to be cut any size you want, all the way up to 12x12 inches. (it can even be used with vinyl on a roll, so you can even make signs with letters up to 12 inches high.) The paper is set onto a sticky cutting mat to hold it steady and loaded into the machine. Then you 'send' the instructions to the machine which cuts the pattern out of the paper using a teeny-tiny blade. After it cuts the shape, you very carefully 'peel' the paper off the cutting mat, and voila- a really neat, intricately cut shape, without any work at all! (well, not much work, anyway)

Here's the first shapes I cut out of some scrap paper after I got it hooked up-- I wanted to see just how intricate of a shape I could cut. I like the Polaroid frames, and that stem of leaves is pretty cool, too.

this snowflake is about 3 inches across- isn't the detail in the cutting amazing??

This picture shows the machine and laptop in the picture for size comparison's sake. Now, I've been scouring the internet for shapes and designs- there are plenty of people who post shapes for free, or for sale, for those of us who don't want to design our own. It will also cut any font you have loaded onto your computer, too. In addition to cards and scrapping, it can be used for cutting out the parts for assembling 3-D paper projects, too. It can also be used to cut fabric, for craft projects or for quilting. I doubt I'll be doing that, but I do plan to use it for making scrapbook page embellishments.